The Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 was recently signed into law, and what might seem on the surface like a straightforward attempt to prevent cuts to Medicare physician rates is actually more than meets the eye.
HIM professionals must be flexible and willing to adapt to the ever-changing healthcare environment. Most people in HIM departments across the nation are focused on the emergence of EHR technology and what will happen with ICD-10, and rightly so. But the key to developing the policies and procedures that will help make any HIM initiative successful is health information governance.
With the use of EHRs on the rise, so too is inappropriate use of EHR functionality. Many of these unintended consequences of EHR use are popping up on the radar of healthcare organizations and the federal government alike.
CMS made relatively few changes in the April quarterly I/OCE update, introducing four new APCs, deleting one, and reclassifying several skin substitute codes.
